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Ginny closed the door on it, her heart sinking. For someone with enthusiasm and energy to match, Keeper’s Cottage had real potential, she thought. Rosina, however, would regard it as a sentence of banishment, and maybe she had a point.
Once again, she found herself pondering the state of a marriage she had always assumed was perfectly content. After all, people didn’t have to live in each other’s pockets to be happy—did they?
But what do I know about marriage—or love, for that matter, she asked herself derisively, remembering Cilla’s jibes earlier.
She’d liked Jonathan. She could admit she’d known a frisson of excitement when he called her, but that was as far as it had gone. Cilla’s golden, glowing return had made sure of that. And any inward pangs she’d suffered from his defection were probably injured pride.
If I’d cared, I’d have fought for him, she told herself. Anyway, it’s all in the past now, and, come June, he’ll be my brother-in-law.
But where and what I’ll be, heaven only knows.
She turned back towards the stairs then froze, as from the ground floor came the unmistakable creak of the front door opening and closing.
Her first thought was that it couldn’t be a burglar because there was nothing to steal but the cooker.
All the same, she reached into her bag for her mobile phone, only to remember it was on charge on her bedside table.
She crept to the top of the stairs and looked cautiously down into the hall.
And there leaning against the newel post, completely at his ease as he looked up at her, was Andre Duchard. He said softly, ‘Virginie.’
Once again, the sound of it made her feel as ridiculously self-conscious as if he had run a finger over her skin. She said huskily, ‘I don’t remember giving you permission to use my name. And what are you doing here?’
His gaze was unwavering. ‘Examining my inheritance,’ he said and smiled. ‘All my new possessions.’
‘Is that what you were doing last night—hanging round on the common?’
He shrugged. ‘I needed to clear my head a little.’
Ginny bit her lip. ‘Does Mr Hargreaves know that you’re here?’
‘But of course.’ The dark brows lifted. ‘I explained to him that I had never visited a hovel and wished to see for myself what such a place was like. He understood perfectly and gave me a key, which, naturellement, I have not needed to use. Because you were here first.’
She stared down at him. ‘Didn’t he tell you that I might be?’
‘No, why should that matter?’
She couldn’t think of a reason apart from how empty the cottage was—and how isolated. And that she had never expected to find herself alone with him—anywhere.
It occurred to her that in some odd way he made the hall seem even more cramped. And that with his untidy hair and the stubble outlining his chin, he was even less prepossessing in broad daylight than he had been the previous evening. He was wearing a dark roll-neck sweater under a thick jacket reaching to mid-thigh, and his long legs were encased in denim and knee-length boots.
And the silence lengthening between them was beginning to feel inexplicably dangerous.
She said hurriedly, ‘I—I’m sorry about the hovel remark. I’m afraid my mother was too distraught to think what she was saying yesterday.’
‘But today all that has arranged itself, and she is reconciled to her new situation?’ His tone bit. ‘I wish I could believe it was true.’
He glanced around him. ‘And how will she like her new home?’
The obvious reply was ‘She won’t.’ But Ginny decided to temporise.
‘Well, it’s rather small, and it does need refurbishing. But I think, in time, it could be—charming.’
‘Tout de même, she did not accompany you here to see for herself.’
‘I don’t think you understand what a shock this has been—for all of us.’ She bit her lip. ‘We didn’t even know that my—that your father was ill.’
‘Nor I,’ he said quietly. ‘It was a matter he chose to keep to himself.’
‘Like so many others,’ Ginny said before she could stop herself.
The dark face was cynical. ‘Perhaps he realised that news of my existence would be unwelcome.’
She said defensively, ‘My mother could hardly blame him for something that happened long before she met him. If she’d been warned what to expect, she might not have this—sense of betrayal.’
‘She feels betrayed?’ The firm mouth curled. ‘How interesting that she should think so.’
She moved restively. ‘Well, I didn’t come here to argue the rights and wrongs of the situation. I’ll go and leave you to your inspection.’ She began to descend the stairs, then paused. ‘I almost forgot. I have an invitation for you.’
